The Great Fire (53 page)

   
201
    
At about 4
P
.
M
., navy ensign
“Thomas Ackley Gaylord,” Lucky Bag, U.S. Naval Academy, 1920.

   
202
    
Miss Christie, born
“Jean Ogilvie Christie,” Ancestry.com.

   
205
    
He had decided to stay
Jennings to Emmons.

   
206
    
The facts about the fire
“Report of Insurance Trial,” ff.

   
207
    
The lawyer for the insurance
“Report of Insurance Trial,” 67–70.

   
211
    
As it happened, the sailors
“Omaha Sailor Witness of Turk Slaughter at Smyrna,”
Omaha World Herald,
Oct. 15, 1922.

   
212
    
And there was yet another macabre element Melville Chater, “History’s Greatest Trek,” National Geographic, Nov. 1925 (Vol. 48).

   
213
    
Horton was still missing
The story of Horton’s intercession on behalf of the doctor was told by the doctor’s daughter, Ida Argyropulos, and included her unpublished biography, GHP.

   
213
    
“The sea front is a seething mass”
Duckworth, Sept. 13, 1922, IWM.

   
214
    
“The tens of thousands of terrified”
Hepburn, 27.

   
215
    
“as we headed for the harbor entrance”
Simpson Ship Diary, Knauss, Sept. 13, 1922.

   
215
    
In Athens, Clayton filed a story
“60,000 Greeks, Armenians Are Homeless,”
Chicago Tribune,
Sept. 15, 1922; “Fire and Massacre in City of Smryna,”
London Daily Telegraph
, Sept. 16, 1922, latter quoted in Oeconomos,
Martyrdom
.

CHAPTER 17: “ALL BOATS OVER”

   
216
    
Hepburn stood on the wood-plank
Details on Hepburn experience continues from his report.

   
217
    
In places, the people were so tightly packed
“Mr. Roy Treloar’s Story,”
London Daily Telegraph,
Sept. 20, 1922: “I could see the unfortunate wretches, thirteen or fourteen deep, swaying in the sweltering heat”; “Last Days of Smyrna,”
Times of London,
Sept. 19, 1922: “As the fire drove them towards the sea, they crowded the whole sea front.” Both quoted in Oeconomos,
Martyrdom
.

   
218
    
What he didn’t know
“Report of Trial,” 25. “Col. Mouharren Bey, agreed that a cordon of Turkish troops had been placed at the Point on the night of the fire. The object of the cordon was to keep the people concentrated where they were. There was a second cordon at the other end of the Quay near the Custom House, and the effect was to prevent the refugees from the fire escaping out the town in either direction.”

   
218
    
“I sat up all last night . . .”
Lieutenant Arthur Duckworth to his parents, Sept. 13, 14, 1922. Papers of Arthur Duckworth, IWW.

   
218
    
Davis saw Turkish soldiers
C. C. Davis to Bristol.

   
219
    
Hepburn only had to consider
Shenk,
Black Sea Fleet,
102, 103. On Houston’s “meticulous” character as an officer, see Clark G. Reynolds’s
On the Warpath in the Pacific: Admiral Jocko Clark and the Fast Carriers
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005), 48.

   
220
    
He nursed ambitions
Lee A. Craig, “Public Sector Pensions in the United States.” http://eh.net/encyclopedia/public-sector-pensions-in-the-united-states/.

   
221
    
Miss Evon and Miss Corning
Evon, “Seven Days in Smyrna.”

   
221
    
“The spectacle was magnificently . . .”
“Smyrna,” September 1922. Private Papers of C. J. Howes, Doc. 2286, IWM. Howes was a chief petty officer aboard the HMS
Diligence
.

   
221
    
The only reporter left
Ward Price’s dramatic description of the fire appeared in the
Daily Mail,
September 16, 1922, under the headline “Two Miles of Fire, Houses Burn Like Furious Torches.” Until the fire, Price’s reporting generally minimized the killing in Smyrna. His account of the first night of the blaze stands as perhaps its most vivid description. Price went on to cover Germany in the 1930s and developed a close relationship with Hitler.

   
221
    
Another British observer
T. W. Bunter, Memoir, Private Papers of T. W. Bunter, Doc. 1444, IWM. Bunter was aboard the HMHS
Main
e at Smyrna.

   
223
    
But he was not without his critics
Domvile Diary, Sept. 5, 1922. “And (Brock) hesitates until it is v. difficult to be patient with the poor man. He is generally right, too, in the end, but still he is very trying.”

   
223
    
Only the day before
, Domvile Diary, Sept. 13, 1922.

   
223
    
Nonetheless, circumstances pointed
Brock to Admiralty, Sept. 11, 1922, quoted in Halpern,
Mediterranean Fleet:
“. . . Kemalists should be informed that failing satisfactory guarantees that they will make no attempt to land in Gallipoli all floating transport will be destroyed.”

   
224
    
Domvile was present
Domvile Diary, Sept. 14, 1922.

   
224
    
In minutes, British boats
Several accounts capture the speed and energy with which the British set to the rescue including Hepburn’s report. See also Domvile Diary and Howes.

   
225
    
Lieutenant Commander C. H. Drage
“The 1914–1933 Diaries of Cmdr. C. H. Drage, RN,” IWM, 143–148.

   
227
    
“One of the saddest cases . . .”
Howes.

   
228
    
As Hepburn met with the relief
Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 14, 1922.

CHAPTER 18: MORNING AFTER

   
229
    
The sun rose Thursday
“Smyrna and After, Part III,” 157, 472.

   
230
    
Agnes Evon, defying
Evon, “Seven Days in Smyrna.”

   
230
    
As it happened, Miss Morley
Hepburn, “Smyrna Disaster.”

   
231
    
“
It appeared to me now . . .”
Hepburn, “Smyrna Disaster,” 31.

   
232
    
The gap between Jennings
Jacob to D. Davis. While Jacob provides details on many aspects of the committee’s work, Jennings’s work is passed over in his summary to his superior.

   
233
    
“We gathered in here . . .”
Jennings to D. Davis.

   
233
    
Jaquith told Hepburn
Hepburn, “Smyrna Disaster,” 32.

   
234
    
The captain of the
Winona Hepburn, “Smyrna Disaster,” 32.

   
234
    
Jaquith radioed a message
Jacquith to STANAV, Sept. 14, 1922. MLB.

   
234
    
The condition and treatment
Jaquith to STANAV, Sept. 14, 1922. MLB.

   
235
    
Walking on the Quay
Vice Consul Maynard Barnes to State Dept, Nov. 22, 1922. NA 767.68/463

   
235
    
Merrill also went ashore
Merrill Diary, Sept. 14, 1922, ASMP.

   
235
    
Soon the entire carpet-warehouse
“Smyrna and After, Part III,” 164.

   
235
    
At about 9
P
.
M
., Barnes
Hepburn, “Smyrna Disaster,” 33; Horton,
Blight of Asia,
164. Horton quotes an American YMCA official, who would have been Jacob since he and Jennings were the only two left in the city.

   
236
    
“Number of refugees . . .”
Hepburn to Bristol, Sept. 15, 1922. MLB.

CHAPTER 19: GARABED HATCHERIAN

   
237
    
Events in this chapter are drawn from Dr. Hatcherian’s diary.

CHAPTER 20: OIL, WAR, AND THE PROTECTION OF MINORITIES

   
241
    
The serious pursuit of oil
For background on the birth of the Near East oil drilling, I have relied on Yergin. Also, Sourkabi, Rasoul, “Centennary of the First Oil Well in the Mideast,”
GeoXpro
5, no. 5, 2008;
Multinational Oil Corporations and U.S. Foreign Policy—Together with Individual Views, to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, by the Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations
. Report (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1975); William Stivers, “International Politics and Iraqi Oil, 1918–1928: A Study in Anglo-American Diplomacy,”
Business History Review
55, no. 4 (1981): 517; Gerald D. Nash,
United States Oil Policy, 1890–1964: Business and Government in Twentieth Century
; George Otis Smith, “Where the World Gets Its Oil but Where Will Our Children Get It When American Wells Cease to Flow?”
The National Geographic Magazine,
February 1920, 181–220; Henry Woodhouse, “American Oil Claims in Turkey,”
Current History
15 (1922): 953–959.

   
244
    
On the day the concession
For a masterful study of the topic, see Margaret Macmillan,
War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
(Toronto: Penguin Books Canada, 2014).

   
245
    
“The Allies had floated . . .”
“Floated to Victory,”
New York Times
, Nov. 23, 1918.

   
245
    
Oil had twice
Erik Dahl, “Naval Innovation: From Coal to Oil,”
Joint Force Quarterly,
Winter 2000–2001.

   
246
    
Secretary Hughes suggested
“Multinational Oil Corporations,” Senate Report.

   
247
    
Idealism was out
America’s transformation in the years following World War I is subject of William Leuchtenburg’s classic
The Perils of Prosperity, 1914–32
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958). “But prosperity held perils of its own. It invested enormous political and social power in a business class with little tradition of social leadership. It placed economic pre-eminence in the hands of the one country in the world least prepared to guide world trade. It made money the measure of man.”

CHAPTER 21: BRISTOL’S RESISTANCE

   
248
    
When he was denied
Bristol to AMNAVPAR (navy delegation in Paris), June 10, 1920. MLB. The likely recipient of the memorandum was Admiral William Benson, chief of Naval Operations, though the ultimate recipient would be the president and secretary of the navy. “I most earnestly request reconsideration by the President and the approval of the Secretary of the Navy.”

   
250
    
The hotel was a masterpiece
“Night at the Museum Hotel,”
Daily Mail,
Oct. 3, 2010.

   
250
    
“They had been supported”
BWD Sept. 8, 1922

   
251
    
One of the noncommissioned officers
“Louis Crocker, Navy veteran, remembers,”
New London Day
, Sept. 8, 1981.

   
251
    
Even Harding
Philip Perlmutter,
Legacy of Hate: A Short History of Ethnic, Religious, and Racial Prejudice in America (
Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), 167.

   
252
    
The memorandum
BWD, Sept. 7, 1922.

   
252
    
Bristol waited three days
Bristol to Sec. of State, Sept. 9, 1922. MLB. For a sense of the spin: “Smyrna situation most alarming. Greek troops in panic and pouring into city. . . . Repeated threats by Greek officers to burn town. Nazili already burned.”

   
252
    
The next day, September
Bristol to Sec. of State. Sept. 10, 1922. MLB. “Smyrna occupied by Mustapha Kemal. Constantinople comparatively tranquil . . .”

   
252
    
On the following day, September 11
, Dr. Peet was back in Bristol’s office at the embassy with Jeannie Jillson, BWD, Sept. 8, 1922. MLB.

   
253
    
On approaching Mudania
Addoms to Bristol, “Mudania Diary,” Sept. 11, 1922. MLB.

   
253
    
The British destroyer had taken
One of the Greek soldiers was Corporal Stamatis Hadjiyannis. (See note above, “Bride of Ionia.”) He left an unpublished memoir, which is in the possession of his grandson George Poulemenos. It reads, in part: “. . . we started swimming towards the French warship, which was about one hundred to one hundred and fifty meters away. We had swum more than two and a half kilometers, and our strength began to diminish. Especially mine, as I was not a good swimmer, . . .

We arrived at the French warship, where we were welcomed. They threw lifejackets with ropes to help us on board, since there was no stairway. I hadn’t the strength to hold the weight of my own body, and the lifejacket was constantly slipping from my hands! The French sailor on the warship, realizing that I was unable to hold on to the lifejacket, hung from the parapet of the warship, perhaps having someone holding him, and grabbed me. Fortunately the sailor had the strength to hold me and get me off the sea, and finally raise me to the warship. When I set my foot on the warship, tears came to my eyes for my misery. I tried not to cry, not wanting to exhibit my frailness.”